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New Years' musings
Jan. 2nd, 2022 01:39 pmI had a wonderful New Year's Eve, with my computer connected to the Zoom filk celebration from when my New Zealand pokemon friends started saying Happy New Year to when it ended. I didn't hear most of the first 7 hours or so because of the need to sleep, but still, falling asleep and waking to friends celebrating was pretty cool.
The next day I tried to stream Dr. Who while painting a room with no cable service, which failed miserably. The cable company told me that I need a new modem, and they set me up with an appointment for Tuesday. So I got less painting done than I wanted, because I retreated to watch Dr. Who on an actual TV, but at least I figure I should count my blessings that the connection held for streaming the zoom gathering the day before.
Looking back at last year, I lost a huge amount of progress on my goals because I spent the whole summer sicker than I realized, and that wasn't cleared up until the fall. I hate the allergies and asthma, which means I'm never all the way healthy. It makes it hard to tell if I have a virus or bacterial infection until and unless the infection gets really bad. I also hate it when I realize I need to call the doctor right after the close of their day, because then it's that much longer before I can get medicine to help the problem.
But this time, I feel like I lucked out. I realized not only that I needed to get a prescription, but that my thinking was foggy, so I started a list of symptoms on paper. That took way longer than it should, but by midnight, I had come to the realization that what was happening had been chronic all summer, and the primary doc had kept on telling me, each time it flared up after the first couple of times, that no matter how much I was self isolating, she thought it was just a virus and I should sleep it off. And spending a few days doing nothing but rest and sleeping 10-14 hours did beat it into remission, but it really wasn't gone.
The thing was in my sinuses and vocal chords for certain; when the initial laryngitis was partially cleared by antibiotics, I still had to capo 2-3 frets higher on everything than normal all summer. And I got less and less focused and less energetic by tiny, invisible increments all summer too. I had managed to do a lot of writing earlier in the year, especially during FAWM, when I wrote more than 30 songs, some of them quite good (going by comments I received and by my own estimation). But over the summer, that mostly stopped. I stopped practicing (which has always been an on-again off-again thing, but I had been going strong for months up until I caught this thing in, I think, early May). I even hit a point where I just wanted to mostly listen during the zoom filks.
And I didn't realize it, until I was trying to put together symptoms on paper for the doctor, and called the allergist to get the kind of treatment I really needed. And the infection had gotten so entrenched by then that I was on antibiotics for weeks, first a longer course of the perfectly appropriate antibiotic the primary prescribed when I insisted, and then a different one because even a long course of the first one just didn't get rid of it. And then the doc insisted on doing new scratch tests, and I got a flu shot, and finally the covid booster, and I feel like I lost most of a year to that crap.
And then both of my laptops were not working right. The older one has keys that just aren't working, and the newer one's mouse pad isn't working. Having a thing plugged into the only USB port it's got makes it hard to transfer files too, but a lot of it is just feeling depressed that neither computer is working right on top of feeling depressed that I got so little done in the past too-many months. And covid, and money issues, and I was too sick to even feel like starting NaNoWriMo this year, and some stupid family drama that really isn't my story to tell, so I wont even try, and the renovation on my bedroom isn't done yet and...well, it's a new year and I can hope for better.
So, plans for the new year.
I'm still pondering that, but there are a few things. I shall do January (music) Practice Month again, and hope that this year I will be able to keep that practice going longer. I shall do FAWM, without the goal of surpassing last year's total, since last year's total left me feeling like I had more than enough worthy new songs to learn. Instead, I shall work on the plan of writing songs _and_ fiction during February. I hope to figure out this home recording thing, and maybe should make progress on that a January goal along with Practice Month. I want to do more art, and make progress on several issues on the house, and be here more, since I feel that time spent here is more creative and productive than time spent on Facebook. I want to get the self-publishing thing going. And I want to start doing Tarot readings here again, both because finances are tight and because I feel like I need more spiritual connection, and doing readings helps with that.
And right now, I need to go do a little snow shoveling, since I can't do a lot at once. But after that, I can work on paying bills, some house stuff, and clearing space for readings. So maybe tonight, or more likely tomorrow, I'll post that I'm open for readings.
Oh, and I did start doing duolinguo last year, and just before the new year hit a 250-day streak!
The next day I tried to stream Dr. Who while painting a room with no cable service, which failed miserably. The cable company told me that I need a new modem, and they set me up with an appointment for Tuesday. So I got less painting done than I wanted, because I retreated to watch Dr. Who on an actual TV, but at least I figure I should count my blessings that the connection held for streaming the zoom gathering the day before.
Looking back at last year, I lost a huge amount of progress on my goals because I spent the whole summer sicker than I realized, and that wasn't cleared up until the fall. I hate the allergies and asthma, which means I'm never all the way healthy. It makes it hard to tell if I have a virus or bacterial infection until and unless the infection gets really bad. I also hate it when I realize I need to call the doctor right after the close of their day, because then it's that much longer before I can get medicine to help the problem.
But this time, I feel like I lucked out. I realized not only that I needed to get a prescription, but that my thinking was foggy, so I started a list of symptoms on paper. That took way longer than it should, but by midnight, I had come to the realization that what was happening had been chronic all summer, and the primary doc had kept on telling me, each time it flared up after the first couple of times, that no matter how much I was self isolating, she thought it was just a virus and I should sleep it off. And spending a few days doing nothing but rest and sleeping 10-14 hours did beat it into remission, but it really wasn't gone.
The thing was in my sinuses and vocal chords for certain; when the initial laryngitis was partially cleared by antibiotics, I still had to capo 2-3 frets higher on everything than normal all summer. And I got less and less focused and less energetic by tiny, invisible increments all summer too. I had managed to do a lot of writing earlier in the year, especially during FAWM, when I wrote more than 30 songs, some of them quite good (going by comments I received and by my own estimation). But over the summer, that mostly stopped. I stopped practicing (which has always been an on-again off-again thing, but I had been going strong for months up until I caught this thing in, I think, early May). I even hit a point where I just wanted to mostly listen during the zoom filks.
And I didn't realize it, until I was trying to put together symptoms on paper for the doctor, and called the allergist to get the kind of treatment I really needed. And the infection had gotten so entrenched by then that I was on antibiotics for weeks, first a longer course of the perfectly appropriate antibiotic the primary prescribed when I insisted, and then a different one because even a long course of the first one just didn't get rid of it. And then the doc insisted on doing new scratch tests, and I got a flu shot, and finally the covid booster, and I feel like I lost most of a year to that crap.
And then both of my laptops were not working right. The older one has keys that just aren't working, and the newer one's mouse pad isn't working. Having a thing plugged into the only USB port it's got makes it hard to transfer files too, but a lot of it is just feeling depressed that neither computer is working right on top of feeling depressed that I got so little done in the past too-many months. And covid, and money issues, and I was too sick to even feel like starting NaNoWriMo this year, and some stupid family drama that really isn't my story to tell, so I wont even try, and the renovation on my bedroom isn't done yet and...well, it's a new year and I can hope for better.
So, plans for the new year.
I'm still pondering that, but there are a few things. I shall do January (music) Practice Month again, and hope that this year I will be able to keep that practice going longer. I shall do FAWM, without the goal of surpassing last year's total, since last year's total left me feeling like I had more than enough worthy new songs to learn. Instead, I shall work on the plan of writing songs _and_ fiction during February. I hope to figure out this home recording thing, and maybe should make progress on that a January goal along with Practice Month. I want to do more art, and make progress on several issues on the house, and be here more, since I feel that time spent here is more creative and productive than time spent on Facebook. I want to get the self-publishing thing going. And I want to start doing Tarot readings here again, both because finances are tight and because I feel like I need more spiritual connection, and doing readings helps with that.
And right now, I need to go do a little snow shoveling, since I can't do a lot at once. But after that, I can work on paying bills, some house stuff, and clearing space for readings. So maybe tonight, or more likely tomorrow, I'll post that I'm open for readings.
Oh, and I did start doing duolinguo last year, and just before the new year hit a 250-day streak!
